After giving birth to daughter North in 2013, Kim Kardashian has allowed the millions of viewers of her family’s reality show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, to witness her fertility struggle as she and husband Kanye West try for a second child. She has also discussed her fear of using a surrogate, should it transpire that she is unable to carry another baby.

During episodes of the most recent series, viewers watched as 34-year-old Kim prepared for an operation to remove pieces of placenta that had remained attached to her uterus after the birth of North. Doctors at the Beverley Hills clinic advised Kim that if she manages to conceive, this could be the last baby she will be able to carry naturally. The reality star’s fertility consultant Dr Huang explained: “When you have your baby, this will be your last one, because the problem is your placenta grew on your uterus. So when you have another baby, your placenta will go right into that hole and then we’ll have a team of doctors waiting right there, to remove your uterus and put you into emergency surgery, because you can’t bleed too much.”

He went on to tell the star: “You can still get pregnant but it does expose you to risks during the pregnancy, I can’t guarantee that.

Surrogacy is the only way to give you a nice, healthy pregnancy and a nice healthy baby. I’m going to do everything I can to clean your uterus out and keep it as healthy as possible, but do what’s safe for you.”

Fighting back tears, Kim was clearly experiencing the same troubling desperation so many would-be mothers experience. “There is nothing more on this earth that I want more than to be pregnant again and to go through that experience, I would pay any amount of money to have that,” she said.

Told that even after this surgery to remove the leftover placenta fragments, it would still be the safest option for Kim and Kanye to use a surrogate, she insisted that she didn’t want to even consider that route.Speaking from the doctor’s clinic, she said: “Surrogacy is really scary for me, I don’t want that to be my reality. It’s my last resort. As much as I hated being pregnant, and I complained every step of the way and joked that I didn’t want one, I really don’t want a surrogate. I wouldn’t dare ask anyone to do this for me. It freaks me out, what if they’re a lunatic, what if they run off with my baby? I can’t do it, I just can’t.”

Kim’s mother, Kris Jenner, tried to placate her daughter with the thought that her older sister Kourtney might be able to act as a surrogate, but she has only just given birth to her third child, son Reign.

Kim’s decision to share her fertility issues on the TV show have sparked huge online debate. On one side, the fact that an international superstar has revealed her struggle so publicly could be seen as encouragement for couples experiencing similar problems and a step towards breaking down the ‘secret’ stigma of infertility. On the other hand, Keeping up with the Kardashians is a scripted reality show, well known for ‘creating’ storylines for the famous family to play out, and critics believe that Kim may have shown this interaction at the clinic in order to make a future decision to use a surrogate seem justified (if she chooses to do so to protect her famous figure).